Efforts to address homelessness must focus on several primary goals:
- Create a path toward permanent housing;
- Improve sanitation and reduce the toxic environments that can be found in unregulated encampments;
- Improve safety and security for unhoused people and for nearby residents;
- Remove blight that denigrates our community and makes it less attractive to both residents and visitors.
By those metrics, the city of Vancouver’s Safe Stay Communities appear to be a success. The first such community, The Outpost in the North Image neighborhood, opened in December with 20 small modular pallet shelters that can house up to 40 people. A second facility opened at 4915 E. Fourth Plain Blvd. in April.
Safe Stay Communities provide sanitation services, portable toilets, kitchen facilities and community spaces, and are staffed around the clock by a nonprofit operator. They also make it easier to connect residents with social services and health care services, enhancing the possibility of people eventually moving into permanent housing.
For people who previously were living in tents or in cars, the move has been transformational. As one resident told The Columbian: “It was a warm, dry place to sleep, without the fear of somebody breaking in. It was more secure.”
City officials recently received a six-month report on The Outpost, and the assessment is encouraging.
Notably, data show a 30 percent reduction in police visits within a 500-foot radius of The Outpost since it opened. There were 82 calls for service from January through June, compared with 108 during the same period in 2021. Officer-initiated visits declined to 41 from 67.
Ideally, that improvement also extends to surrounding neighborhoods. When the city attempted a well-intentioned but poorly designed day center, The Navigation Center, crime in nearby areas contributed to the quick demise of the effort.
Safe Stay Communities are not intended to be a permanent solution for people facing homelessness. Long-term success will depend on the eventual outcomes for residents, and early results in that regard also are encouraging.
Officials say 14 Outpost residents have moved on to permanent housing, and the stability provided by the facility has made a positive difference.
One former resident told The Columbian that Outpost staff helped him secure employment, saying: “It’s hard to keep a job when you’re homeless. I mean, it’s about impossible. This helped me with that. Everyone that works here has been homeless at one point or another. There’s an understanding, and it’s easier to trust them.”
Residents of Safe Stay Communities are not required to be sober, but illegal drugs are not permitted on the site. Enforcing that requirement will be essential to providing the stability that residents crave.
It is too early to determine whether or not The Outpost has been a success. But results thus far support the city’s plans to add additional Safe Stay Communities. Providing one sign that the program is on the right track, officials from several other cities have reached out for information about the developments.
If the facilities can provide legitimate assistance for residents, protect surrounding neighborhoods and remove the blight of unregulated encampments, they will be a rousing success that benefits all residents of our community.
